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If he could get a great script, Tarsem would be the next big whatever.

I don't think a lot of directors can tell, though.

It's a problem you see even with people like Spielberg.

That's a thing, though, see.

I'd almost make a devil's bargain that the best directors can still pull great things out of an average script.

I'll wager you're right, but they can only do so if the producers don't have something to say about it first. Guys like Spielberg and Scorcese, however, are the exception in that they have final cut over their films. So, if you find something deficient in a Spielberg film, there's an excellent chance he had some very direct involvement in that choice.

It's not the frothing hyperbole machine it sounds like. Even at his most disagreeable, Devin Faraci can usually be counted on to begin a reasonable conversation and offer fair critiques (albeit with the occasional dismissive and polemical qualities you can expect of most eCritics). The site is also home to "Film Critic Hulk," an anonymous contributing blogger who despite his tragically idiotic signature style (writing all in caps, all Hulk-like) has been a remarkably insightful presence in the internet film community.

It's actually pretty irritating for figures who have so much to contribute to be bound up in such silly bullshit.

Mirror Mirror is at about 55% with 50 reviews counted on rotten tomatoes. Consensus : "Like most of Tarsem Singh's films, Mirror Mirror is undeniably beautiful -- but its treatment of the age-old Snow White fable lacks enough depth or originality to set it apart from the countless other adaptations of the tale."

Not too surprised.

Not to sound xenophobic, but Tarsem's movies tend to follow a trend of being extremely nice to look at while having very little concern for the story being told that not at all uncommon with films from India and Russia. He reminds me a lot of Bekmambetov, actually.

If he could get a great script, Tarsem would be the next big whatever.

Tarsem Singh, director of the Snow White adaptation Mirror Mirror, told The Hollywood Reporter that his intended follow-up, the wartime thriller Eye in the Sky, is meant to be a departure after tackling projects that have emphasized visual rather than narrative considerations. "I had just been looking specifically for material that wasn't on paper, that was not written well," Tarsem said Tuesday. "I wanted that because I want to be able to put enough of my DNA in it and I am very aware that I'm putting the cart ahead of the donkey. But now I'd like to do non-visual films, and I'd like to go reflect on people."

I must admit that this is so mindblowingly dumb, that I can't help but be fascinated by it. I hope it actually gets made and released. The chances of it not being a trainwreck are slim to none, but I'm sure it will be glorious.

yeah it's the constant hope with remakes/whatever you want to call this

that they get the tone right. with the right tone that's a fucking brilliant idea.

If he could get a great script, Tarsem would be the next big whatever.

I don't think a lot of directors can tell, though.

It's a problem you see even with people like Spielberg.

That's a thing, though, see.

I'd almost make a devil's bargain that the best directors can still pull great things out of an average script.

I'll wager you're right, but they can only do so if the producers don't have something to say about it first. Guys like Spielberg and Scorcese, however, are the exception in that they have final cut over their films. So, if you find something deficient in a Spielberg film, there's an excellent chance he had some very direct involvement in that choice.

Yeah. Spielberg seems to me to not be able to differentiate a good script from a bad one, but can still get good performances and knows where to point the camera. It's how the same guy who makes ET can make Hook and not see there really being a qualitative difference.

The alternative explanation is that he can differentiate between good and bad scripts, and his bad films are cashgrabs.

(Michael Caine, on Jaws: The Revenge: "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.")

Jurassic Park isn't a cash grab yet it has places that make no sense (eg. The T-Rex paddock goes from being ground level with a goat feeding area to a sheer drop with a huge tree for a Jeep to catch on. Does it ruin the film? Not at all, but it does show an inability to see glaring holes. Same thing with the fine details of something garbagy like Indiana Jones and the Aliens of Lucas's Wallet.)

The alternative explanation is that he can differentiate between good and bad scripts, and his bad films are cashgrabs.

(Michael Caine, on Jaws: The Revenge: "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.")

Jurassic Park isn't a cash grab yet it has places that make no sense (eg. The T-Rex paddock goes from being ground level with a goat feeding area to a sheer drop with a huge tree for a Jeep to catch on. Does it ruin the film? Not at all, but it does show an inability to see glaring holes. Same thing with the fine details of something garbagy like Indiana Jones and the Aliens of Lucas's Wallet.)

I've never seen another person mention this but it has confused me for years. I always assumed I was the issue.

The alternative explanation is that he can differentiate between good and bad scripts, and his bad films are cashgrabs.

(Michael Caine, on Jaws: The Revenge: "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.")

Jurassic Park isn't a cash grab yet it has places that make no sense (eg. The T-Rex paddock goes from being ground level with a goat feeding area to a sheer drop with a huge tree for a Jeep to catch on. Does it ruin the film? Not at all, but it does show an inability to see glaring holes. Same thing with the fine details of something garbagy like Indiana Jones and the Aliens of Lucas's Wallet.)

The alternative explanation is that he can differentiate between good and bad scripts, and his bad films are cashgrabs.

(Michael Caine, on Jaws: The Revenge: "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.")

Jurassic Park isn't a cash grab yet it has places that make no sense (eg. The T-Rex paddock goes from being ground level with a goat feeding area to a sheer drop with a huge tree for a Jeep to catch on. Does it ruin the film? Not at all, but it does show an inability to see glaring holes. Same thing with the fine details of something garbagy like Indiana Jones and the Aliens of Lucas's Wallet.)

I've never seen another person mention this but it has confused me for years. I always assumed I was the issue.

Never even paused to wonder on that. Just figured they had more than one T-Rex out there.

Now, the velociraptors actually being deinonychus in the movie...

EDIT: Apparently since I was a child, deinonychus are now depicted as being shaggy, feathery, semi-winged New Orleans lizards, rather than the ultimate killing machines I was taught from books.

The alternative explanation is that he can differentiate between good and bad scripts, and his bad films are cashgrabs.

(Michael Caine, on Jaws: The Revenge: "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.")

Jurassic Park isn't a cash grab yet it has places that make no sense (eg. The T-Rex paddock goes from being ground level with a goat feeding area to a sheer drop with a huge tree for a Jeep to catch on. Does it ruin the film? Not at all, but it does show an inability to see glaring holes. Same thing with the fine details of something garbagy like Indiana Jones and the Aliens of Lucas's Wallet.)

I've never seen another person mention this but it has confused me for years. I always assumed I was the issue.

It's always driven me nuts too, because there's even a shot when they FIRST pull up to the T-Rex paddock and he's nowhere to be found. It's a shot from inside the paddock looking down at the jeeps and you can clearly see on the other side of the road (where you MIGHT possibly think that drop-off could be) is just forest.

Just saw The Raid: Redemption, and it was the best action film that I've seen in a long time.

It's short on plot, which is to be expected, but its action sequences are brutal, inventive, and very well-shot. Each fight is rather long and features multiple actors, and yet you never have trouble keeping track of the protagnoists or following their movements. Furthermore, the action never becomes repetitive or dull, and there are always sudden shifts and big finishes to keep you interested.

And between those scenes, the film maintains a strong sense of tension and despair that is only multiplied by the grim, dirty setting.

Seriously, if you like this sort of thing and live near an independent theater, check this out.

We have a Sundance Theater in Houston that's showing the Raid this weekend, I need to check it out. Seriously, it's been on my list because that is just an awesome trailer we saw months ago, it's good to know it doesn't let you down.

Damn that was a good movie. And I was kinda expecting a downer ending but that was pretty brutal.

Only two real issues I had with it:
- the necessity of the whole Cross family ... thing.

Spoiler:

It just seemed so ... unnecessary. I don't know. Like the guy just had to be that much more evil for some reason or something. Maybe it'll become more relevant after I sleep on it.

- John Huston as Noah Cross. There was just something so fucking hammy to me about his performance in the last 20 minutes of the movie. Maybe it's his voice or something, but it was jarring.

The Cross family was what made it a great downer ending, evil like that really does exist in the world and they too often get away with it. Sometimes the movie going public needs to be reminded of that.

Noah Cross has the joviality of a man that knows he is untouchable. He thinks Jake's investigations are funny, because no matter what Jake discovers he his not going to be held accountable for it. Besides Jake is completely on the wrong track when it comes to his plans for LA and his daughter.

Hamlet 2, starring Steve Coogan, was surprisingly not-bad. Definitely some funny jokes, and Coogan is incapable of embarrassment, which helps with this sort of comedy. It's a shame, though, that the performance of the titular play at the end of the movie is probably the weakest and most drawn-out joke of the entire film. And Catherine Keener is somewhat wasted as Coogan's frustrated wife.

Hamlet 2, starring Steve Coogan, was surprisingly not-bad. Definitely some funny jokes, and Coogan is incapable of embarrassment, which helps with this sort of comedy. It's a shame, though, that the performance of the titular play at the end of the movie is probably the weakest and most drawn-out joke of the entire film. And Catherine Keener is somewhat wasted as Coogan's frustrated wife.

I'm a little surprised to hear this view, since while I really enjoyed the film, I felt that the finale was easily the best part and the culmination of a lot of the build-up established earlier in the film. To me, it was very much a slow-burn observation of this man's life going going completely to shit.

For me, the ending was undecided between being a parody of the sub-genre and embracing it. Everything that had come before was about the massive discrepancy between the protagonist's ambitions and dreams and his actual life, showing how sad and deluded the guy is and how he still soldiers on. The performance, while still played for laughs and showing just how bad a writer and actor the guy is, showed way too much impressive craftsmanship and spectacle. To my mind, it dropped 80% of the satire to say, "Wow, he kinda, sorta did it!" I found the film funnier and more honest before that - and to my mind the jokes in the film's first two thirds had a sharper edge and were funnier. It's not that I thought that the ending is downright bad - it's just the part that worked least for me.

And the very last scene in NY just sat there. They should've just left that one out and ended with the performance's finale.

Hamlet 2, starring Steve Coogan, was surprisingly not-bad. Definitely some funny jokes, and Coogan is incapable of embarrassment, which helps with this sort of comedy. It's a shame, though, that the performance of the titular play at the end of the movie is probably the weakest and most drawn-out joke of the entire film. And Catherine Keener is somewhat wasted as Coogan's frustrated wife.

I'm a little surprised to hear this view, since while I really enjoyed the film, I felt that the finale was easily the best part and the culmination of a lot of the build-up established earlier in the film. To me, it was very much a slow-burn observation of this man's life going going completely to shit.

Agreed, though, that Keener has very little to do in this film.

I don't know why, but I just can't like Steve Coogan. I keep trying but it always feels, rather than him being a comedian or an actor, like I'm just putting up with some tiring guest with a disturbing upper lip.

For me, the ending was undecided between being a parody of the sub-genre and embracing it. Everything that had come before was about the massive discrepancy between the protagonist's ambitions and dreams and his actual life, showing how sad and deluded the guy is and how he still soldiers on. The performance, while still played for laughs and showing just how bad a writer and actor the guy is, showed way too much impressive craftsmanship and spectacle. To my mind, it dropped 80% of the satire to say, "Wow, he kinda, sorta did it!" I found the film funnier and more honest before that - and to my mind the jokes in the film's first two thirds had a sharper edge and were funnier. It's not that I thought that the ending is downright bad - it's just the part that worked least for me.

And the very last scene in NY just sat there. They should've just left that one out and ended with the performance's finale.

Aw, the epilogue in New York had the best line!

"Chuy, you're going to have a magical life. Because no matter where you go, it's always going to be better than Tucson."

The reference to it earlier in the thread got me to watch Men in Black again for the first time in some years.

What struck me is how well-designed the movie is from a marketing standpoint. I was 11 in 1997 when the film was released, and so Smith's energy and wisecracking kept me buried in that movie. Kids and young adults have this anchor of appeal throughout that film. Watching the film as more of a grown-up, Smith is a little more tiresome, which invites a little more attention for some really strong supporting work. This is Tommy Lee Jones' film, and Will Smith is there for the ride. Smith has only a very slight character arc, but Jones spends the movie teetering at the very end of an important one suggested to have begun long before we get the opening credits. What's more, Smith's zaniness is less the cool outsider shaking up the establishment, and more fodder for such coolness to be aggressively redefined. Smith is the butt of jokes that Jones chooses not to tell, but it's clearly taking everything in Jones' power not to show how incredibly amused he (and his character) really is at Smith's struggle to keep his head above water. Really wonderful straight-man work. In a movie starring a popular rapper and sitcom star and otherwise filled with huge, colorful aliens, the message today reads a little more like "hey, we can be cooler when we tone it down a notch. Those who don't are getting slimed with some shit." It's infectious, and never tips over into mean-spirited. I'm rarely in awe of a film's marketability, but damn if the film wasn't built to succeed in such different ways from such different perspectives.

Plus you've got Rip Torn and his deadpan disinterest in daily apocalypse, Tony Shaloub dripping sleaze (sometimes literally), and Vincent D'Onofrio really, truly selling the idea of a massive insect trapped in decomposing human skin. The movie reeks of the late 90s, but I live for movies built on this kind of character-actor work.

As to the question of fish-out-of-water exposition, this is a film that proves that even in a 9 figure summer production, when exposition needs to be done, it can be done with wit, charm and creativity ("Ever see Casablanca? Like that, but no Nazis"). It helps if Tommy Lee Jones is doing it.

The alternative explanation is that he can differentiate between good and bad scripts, and his bad films are cashgrabs.

(Michael Caine, on Jaws: The Revenge: "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.")

Jurassic Park isn't a cash grab yet it has places that make no sense (eg. The T-Rex paddock goes from being ground level with a goat feeding area to a sheer drop with a huge tree for a Jeep to catch on. Does it ruin the film? Not at all, but it does show an inability to see glaring holes. Same thing with the fine details of something garbagy like Indiana Jones and the Aliens of Lucas's Wallet.)

I've never seen another person mention this but it has confused me for years. I always assumed I was the issue.

I picked up on it when I originally saw it in the cinema, I always wondered how you were actually supposed to see the T-Rex if it was down there. And the flipside is, how the hell did the T-Rex get up there?

The alternative explanation is that he can differentiate between good and bad scripts, and his bad films are cashgrabs.

(Michael Caine, on Jaws: The Revenge: "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.")

Jurassic Park isn't a cash grab yet it has places that make no sense (eg. The T-Rex paddock goes from being ground level with a goat feeding area to a sheer drop with a huge tree for a Jeep to catch on. Does it ruin the film? Not at all, but it does show an inability to see glaring holes. Same thing with the fine details of something garbagy like Indiana Jones and the Aliens of Lucas's Wallet.)

I've never seen another person mention this but it has confused me for years. I always assumed I was the issue.

I picked up on it when I originally saw it in the cinema, I always wondered how you were actually supposed to see the T-Rex if it was down there. And the flipside is, how the hell did the T-Rex get up there?

Spielberg doesn't care how he got there. He does this sometimes. For instance, how the path the tourists were riding in suddenly became a cliff when they were being chased by the T-Rex.

I once saw a write-up online somewhere that tried to explain that. Basically they tried saying that the spot where the goat was tethered was actually the only bit that met directly with the road, and the rest of the edge of the paddock was well below the level of the road, with an incline back up to ground level. Something like that anyway, it was a while back when I read that.